The Quotidian
Everyday BE/Longing
Listen Here- An Outdoors Walk into the Quotidian
Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.
Bill Moyers
The everydayness of everyday. The ordinary ordinariness. That which happens all around us that somehow we slowly fail to see anymore. The taken-for-grantedness. The quotidian. A reflective gaze at the ordinary truly reveals the shape shifting transformation all around us, in us, and of us. Every single day.
Every day has something in it whose name is
Forever.Mary Oliver
There is magic in the mundane. Mary Oliver was a magician in being present deep inside the ordinary. She met the edges of everyday as a sacred church and prayed at its altar. She translated the sensory experience of everyday situations and created some of the best poetry ever written. In the mirror of her words we caught a glimpse our own reflection.
Our lives reveal us. We hold that cup of life in our hands everyday. As we sip from that cup of presence we slowly emerge as an unfolding of the mysterious ordinary everyday. It has always been extraordinary. On second thought, maybe that cup is holding us? Maybe it has been drinking us in, all along?
Breathe in experience. Breathe out poetry.
Muriel Rukeyser
We are the poem.
Quotidian
I catch a glimpse
of the steam of a morning brew
spiralling in its own unfurling
Disappearing into the moment
Melting into air
right in front of my eyes
I breathe it in every day
Yet it moves past me
or through me like a ghost
Maybe I am the ghost
or an angel?
Never fully present
Endlessly circling
the evaporating expiration
of bone and skin
Could I be the cup?
Holding it all in
Some kind of consciousness
reading the braille of my body
Watching and waiting for wonder
to drink from me again
© Jamie Millard
I recorded the live voice audio to this on a walk in the woods.
Please enjoy the ordinary everyday magic that found me in the song of birds and an eager woodpecker. Two deer eyed me up and listened along, standing still watching me the whole time I talked. The audio is found under the main title above.
May you unfold into your own emergence in the magic of the mundane as you live into the questions in cuoreosity.
Bless You
Lots of Love,
Jamie
I like the question "Could I be the cup?" It's very intriguing ... well, could I? Mary Oliver was, so I guess it's possible. What can I offer back to Nature who has given me so much? Time, and appreciation, a poem ... looks like you're well on the case. 😊
"It has always been extraordinary."
Thank you so much for this. Quotidian is indeed an extraordinary word. Meaning 'ordinary' while so rarely used that we can truly experience in it, what you are breathing out through your poem ~ the extraordiness of everyday life.
I love the woodpecker saying Hello! too.
Quotidian. Reminding us of the quota of our days on this journey of life.
Thank you 💕🙏